What HR asks before trusting an online test

They can try, and we make it hard and visible. The test runs in full screen, with copy, paste, right-click and autocorrect switched off. Each person gets their own selection of questions in their own order, and the correct answers never reach the browser. Leaving the test is counted: the first time shows a warning, and the second pauses the test until your team decides. Optional camera checks, run on the person's own device, notice when no face is visible or someone else is in view.

To be straight with you: it is a web page, not a locked-down computer. No website can remove the browser's own controls, stop someone using a phone beside the screen, or reliably see a second monitor. That is why nothing is decided by the software alone: what it notices is shown to a person, who decides. A fully locked-down exam needs a separate desktop application, which this product is not.

No software can prove that, and we don't claim to. We look for patterns that a person working alone rarely produces, such as a whole paragraph appearing at once or answers faster than the questions can be read, and flag them for your review in their own section of the report. Flags are marked provisional while we calibrate them against real results, and a flag never changes a level, a score or a certificate.

Your team. The software never fails, voids or disqualifies anyone on a signal. When a test pauses because someone left it twice, your HR team sees what the browser reported and when, and either confirms the stop or lets the person continue. Every decision is recorded with who made it.

Everyone sits the same six sections under the same time limits, kept by our server rather than the person's computer. The questions adjust to each person's level as they go, so everyone is measured on questions that suit them, and every result is reported on the same OTO scale, based on the CEFR.

If a noisy room spoils a section, your team can let the person redo just that section. If a section was never finished, for example because a microphone failed, the attempt has no overall level or certificate until it is done, and your team can reopen the missing section. Neither uses another seat.

The assessment and certificate are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) standard. The certificate is issued by OTO Courses.

No. Where your cohort uses camera checks, the image is analysed on the associate's own device and never leaves it: we receive only the type and time of each event. Speech is used to mark speaking and is not kept by us.

Only what is printed on the certificate: the name, the level, the dates, the certificate ID, the issuer and the certificate's own background pattern. Not the employer, and not the result in each skill.

Your work email, your name, and your company's name, industry and size. We ask for company documents only if you want more than five seats. Only OTO staff can open them, and we delete each file 90 days after we decide on it, or 90 days after upload if you never send it for review, and never keep one longer than a year.

Results are kept for 24 months, and snapshots, where used, for 90 days. See our privacy and proctoring notice.

In minutes. Create your account, confirm your email, add your company's details, and invite your first people straight away.

Grammar, vocabulary, reading and listening are marked as they are answered, and writing and speaking shortly after the associate finishes. Results reach your dashboard as each person completes.

about 85 minutes, including a few minutes to check the equipment. Your team can let people take breaks between sections.

$10 per participant for 1 to 20 participants, $8 for 21 to 100 participants, and $6 for 101 to 500 participants. For 501 and above, we quote on the shape of the programme. Your first five seats are free.

Only when a test actually starts. An invitation nobody opens costs nothing, and redoing a section or reopening a missing one never uses another seat.

Not for your five free seats. If you ask for more, we ask once for your commercial register extract and tax card, so we can confirm the company and invoice it. If you signed up with a personal email address, we also ask for a signed letter saying you may act for the company.

No. Free seats go to one account per company email domain, or per personal email address. A second account for the same organisation opens with none.

A laptop or desktop computer with the latest Chrome or Edge, a working microphone, speakers or headphones, and a webcam if your cohort uses integrity flags. Phones and tablets are not supported. A quiet room helps.

The equipment check before the test catches most problems. If Listening or Speaking still can't be taken, the report says which section is missing, and the attempt gets no overall level or certificate until your team reopens that section and it is done, without using another seat.

Yes, if you choose breaks between sections for your cohort. Associates can stop after any finished section and come back later, within the number of days you set. A section that has started can't be paused. If you choose one sitting, the test runs from start to finish.

Only if your HR team allows it, in one of two ways. A full retake starts again from the beginning, and the earlier attempt is kept on record and marked as void. A section retake lets the associate redo only the sections you choose: the latest result for each counts, and the certificate is reissued.